


The Rain

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:20:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hama had never liked the rain.
Kudos: 9





	The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> basically this is just a quick thing I've been wanting to write for ages  
> enjoy :)

Hama had never liked the rain, even after she knew she could bend. The droplets of water beating down relentlessly on her skin had made her scowl even on her best days.

Of course, it didn't rain that often in the South Pole. Not when Hama was small. But when she was tall enough to reach her peg on the wall, the Fire Nation had begun their raids. The ash transformed the crisp white snow into grey icey sludge that bit at her ankles.

Those were the good days. As the years went by, as more waterbenders were captured with each raid, the Fire Nation grew less careful. The heat coming from the ships made the grey sludge falling from the sky become less and less frozen until one day, Hama felt a drop on her forehead. Rain.

Exactly three days after Hama's seventeenth birthday, another waterbender was taken. Hama was the last one left. The drip-drip-drip on her head had become incessant, and she knew it would not be long until they came for her.

Hama had spent her last day in the South with her family and a friend from the north. They had seal jerky and five flavour soup. It was.. nice. But the rain kept falling, the drip-drip-drip reminding Hama that any day now would be her last. 

Then they came. Hama had fought. She had knocked out at least 20 soldiers. But when one raised a handful of flames to her mother's face, she surrendered. 

Hama spent many long years in prison. The air was dry and stale, and the light was dim. She didn't have access to any water, and she was cuffed to the wall when she was allowed to drink. The rats gnawed at her feet. And always, the drip-drip-drip, nagging at her mind, tearing her apart from the inside.

Every so often, a guard would come, would feed her whatever scraps they had left that day. It wasn't enough to live on. So Hama had decided not to.

Hama had come to a realisation after seemingly countless years in that prison. No-one was coming to rescue her. Death would be better than this, the watching the bending be stripped away from her friends, the daily tortures. 

So Hama refused her food. She closed her eyes, and waited for death to claim her.

Then, she felt something she hadn't in years. A cooling sensation that spread through her very veins. Water. Hama had opened her eyes eagerly, but there was nothing there, nothing but the rats that gnawed at the bars. She had leant back, trying not to feel disappointed. Her eyes had closed once more.

It was still there. But it had felt.. different than to how Hama remembered. It felt.. almost alive. She had tried to focus on the push and pull of the water, but it.. wasn't there? It felt more powerful in a way, yet more fragile - like the beating of a heart, so strong, yet so easily stopped.

She had reached out with her cuffed hand gingerly, raising it up, with, she hoped, whatever water was there. She opened her eyes. No water. She sighed. Her eyes had flickered over to the corner of the cell. They flickered back. A rat stood on its hind legs, stiff as a board, tiny black eyes wide in terror. 

Hama had gasped. She dropped her hand and clutched it to her. The rat fell to the ground. Trembling, Hama had raised her hand again, hoping to shake away whatever delusion.. that - was. The rat rose up once more, its eyes flickering to her. 

Her finger had twitched minutely. Only a twitch. Yet the rat twitched to the side. 

'What is this?' Hama had whispered to the darkness. There was no reply. Nothing but the constant torment of the drip-drip-drip of the rain outside.

She dropped her hand to the ground. Her hold over the creature had been lost, and it too, fell to the ground. The rat, shaken as it was, still managed to run away, although not before biting her hard on the finger.

Hama had cried out, and held it up to the thin trickle of light coming from a crack in her cell. Even in this lighting, she could still see the blood dripping onto the floor. Swiftly, she bent it into a corner, so she didn't slip. Wait. Bent. She had bent water! No. Not water. Blood. She had.. bent blood? 

Hama had heard a scuffle in a corner of her cell. She found another rat scrabbling around for her crumbs. Making to bat it away, she paused. Can I bend the water inside another's body? Is that what I did to the rat? 

She had raised her hand, focusing on the blood pumping within. The rat rose up to face the sky. And for the first time in 20 years, Hama had smiled.

For the next five years, every full moon, Hama practiced maintaining, strengthening her hold on the rats. She made them dance, do cartwheels. They were nothing more than skins filled with water at her command. Her monthly entertainment.

Although she supposed they were more than that. They were practice. If she could bend the water in a rats body, why not a human? And if she had the guards under her control, well.. she could finally escape. She could finally get her revenge.

And so, when the next full moon arrived, Hama was enriched with strength and power. Tonight was the night. When the shift came round to Hama's cell, she waved at the man.

Her fingers had already begun to expertly pull the strings of the body, run by the mechanism of water. Up, down, grab the key, up, across, in, and _turn._ The door unlocked.

Hama had smiled sweetly, and snapped the man's neck. 

Once she was far away from the prison, Hama had set up an inn, just a small one, on the edge of a Fire Nation town. And every full moon since arriving, she had shown a Fire Nation citizen exactly what it was like in those prisons. Exactly what it was like for her.

Then Katara had arrived and her whole life flipped upside down. At first she was thrilled - another waterbender to share her secrets with - from the Southern Tribe no less! 

Katara had seemed ecstatic to begin with; actively engaging in bending the water out of the air and the plants. Hama had thought she was ready to take the next step.

So that full moon, she took Katara with her, and showed her the very key which got her out of prison. Bloodbending. Hama explained how it was Katara's duty to carry on her bending and share it with the other waterbenders. But Katara wanted no part in it. She called it immoral - she called Hama immoral.

Hama had grown angry. Katara didn't know what it was like in those prisons, didn't know what Hama had gone through. Hama would show her.

The power of the moon rushing through her veins, she stretched her hands and began to pull at the strings of Katara's body.

But in her rage, she had missed one crucial fact: Katara also drew her power from the moon. And for a reason Hama couldn't explain, the moon seemed to favour Katara tonight. Katara broke free from Hama's grip.

Katara and Hama fought beneath the moon - and Katara, although Hama hated to admit it, was winning. But then her friends showed up. They told Hama to stand down, that she was outnumbered. She felt a smile tug at her lips.

'No.' She had snarled. 'You've outnumbered yourselves.'

Hama had taken control of the two boys effortlessly; really, it was pathetic how easy it was to push her will over their own. Her hands spun the strings of the two bodies, causing them to stumble in short, spasmic movements owards Katara with their weapons. If only Katara would have seen how easy it was to stop them with blood bending!

But she didn't. She froze the two to separate trees, shouting out apologies. Hama had broken them free with a flick of her hand. 

'Don't hurt your friends, Katara!' She had taunted, smiling mockingly. Her gaze flickered to the sharp boomerang one of them held. The smile widened. 'And don't let them hurt each other!' 

She brought them flying together. Then they stopped, the connection broken. Hama stared at her hands. She glared up at the moon, betrayed. The drip-drip-drip of the rain on her forehead pound out the rhythm: _you're dead you're dead you're dead._ Then her body went stiff. 

Her gaze flickered to Katara. Mouth set in a determined line, she had brought Hama kneeling to the ground at her feet. Guards came forward with the earthbender girl. Despite everything, Hama smiled.

'Congratulations, Katara. You're a blood bender.' Hama grinned as she was dragged away to the Fire Nation prison for the second time in her life. 

Hama spent her last days, rotting away in the dust of the prison made for waterbenders. She died there, content in the knowledge her legacy was passed on. And the drip-drip-drip of the rain finally stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed <3


End file.
